About

Tony Soprano's "In This House, Columbus Is A Hero, End Of Story!" refers to memes and jokes about a memorable catchphrase uttered by the protagonist of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano. After the character finds out that his son is critical of Christopher Columbus, he invokes their family's Italian pride to say that Columbus is a hero. The dialogue inspired a phrasal template meme popular on Twitter (now X) in the early 2020s.

Origin

Season 4 episode 3 of The Sopranos aired on September 29th, 2002, and centered around the Columbus Day parade in town. After Tony learns that his son A.J. is critical of Columbus, he declares "He discovered America is what he did. He was a brave Italian explorer. In this house, Columbus is a hero, end of story!"^[1]

The earliest known use of the aforementioned dialogue as a phrasal template meme is an October 13th, 2018 post on 4chan's /v/ board (seen below).^[2]

Spread

On November 1st, 2020, X^[3] user @JCaporoso posted an image of Tony with the caption, "In this house Ben DiNucci is a hero, end of story!" gathering over 1,000 likes in four years (seen below, left). June 7th, 2022 saw X^[4] user @JackdawJackal post the earliest known use of the catchphrase alongside the image of Tony pointing, gathering over 17,000 likes on a post that read, "He unified Arrakis is what he did. He was the Kwisatz Haderach. And in this house, Paul Muad’Dib is a hero. End of story."

On April 9th, 2023, Instagram^[5] page @the.godemperors.new.groove posted a Warhammer 40K meme using an image of Tony, gathering over 2,000 likes in a year (seen below, left). On December 2nd, 2023, Instagram^[6] page @glorifiedcrewnecks posted a Gail Lewis meme that gathered over 8,000 likes in six months (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References